April 2025 Reading Wrap Up -- BOOK THOUGHTS

BOOK THOUGHTS

April 2025 Monthly Wrap Up

April was gorgeous here in Portland. We had April showers, but they brought April flowers. The magnolias, cherry trees, camelias, dogwoods, and all the rest seemed particularly stunning this year, maybe because we never got an ice storm or hard freeze. 

As beautiful as the flowers were, they didn’t distract me from reading 14 books last month. Several were fantastic, all were worthwhile. There wasn't a clunker in the mix.

See any here that you’ve read or want to? 

• Just One Evil Act by Elizabeth George. This is book 15 of 18 in her Inspector Lynley/Barbara Havers series. I greatly enjoy the books but am determined to finish the series. 

• Kingmaker: Pamela Harriman’s Astonishing Life of Power, Seduction, and Intrigue by Sonia Purnell. My favorite of the month! Harriman was an intriguing person who lived an extraordinary life. She was was married to Winston Churchill's son Randolph during WWII, then Broadway producer Leland Hayward, and finally banker and diplomat Avril Harriman. She had many other love affairs and was quite the jet setter. She was Bill Clinton's Ambassador to France and died in Paris in 1997, just shy of her 77th birthday. My husband gave this to me for Christmas and I included it in my TBR 25 in '25 list. 

• The Kitchen Diaries: A Year in the Kitchen with [and by] Nigel Slater. This is the first of four "Kitchen Diaries" books by Slater. I started off intending to read it over the course of the year, but couldn't hack that pace. I bolted it. I love his books, this one included. That said, I am not fond of his baking recipes, which feature a lot -- A LOT -- of candied citrus peel and dried fruit. I am not a fan of either. This was another TBR 25 in '25 for me.

• The Enchanted April by Elizabeth Von Arnim. I've been intending to read this classic for a long time and finally found a beautiful Folio edition (without slipcase) at a friends of the library shop. I waited until April to read it, of course. I know I will reread this one. This could count as my Italy book for the 2025 European Reading Challenge, although I'd like to find and read a book by an Italian author. 

• Hidden Libraries: The World’s Most Unusual Book Depositories by D.C. Helmuth. A friend gave me this for Christmas and it is fascinating.

• Unsettled Ground by Claire Fuller. My book club picked this for our April meeting. It is a sad, sometimes frustrating, story but we all loved the rural gothic vibe.  

• Ripley Underground and Ripley’s Game by Patricia Highsmith, books two and three in her Ripley series. I read The Talented Mr. Ripley a while back, but wasn't moved to read the sequels right away. The first one left me cold. I like the bad guys to get caught in the mystery books I read, not crime fiction about bad guys getting away with murder. But I had these two in the same omnibus edition, and I'm a completist, so I read them. Interesting stories, but not my favorite. I think there are two or three more in the series, but I've had enough. 

• Penmarric by Susan Howatch was thoroughly engrossing. I love a big, shaggy, family saga and those written in the 1970s are the best of the. I didn’t know going into it that it is a retelling King Henry II’s family history. Clever!

• Literary Feasts: Inspired Eating from Classic Fiction by Sean Brand. I wanted to like this one more, but found it a little too fluffy. Still, it was a fun, quick read. It was one of the three little pipsqueak books I read.

• Freedom Feminism: Its Surprising History and Why It Matters Today by Christina Hoff Sommers. This was another pipsqueak in size, but it packed a punch in content. It includes the history of an overlooked side of early feminist efforts and argues for a more inclusive definition of feminism today.  

• I Could Pee on This: And Other Poems by Cats by Francesco Marciuliano. This was the third pipsqueak I read last month. It was funnier than I thought it would be.

NOT PICTURED -- AUDIOBOOKS

• The Body in the Castle Well by Martin Walker. This is book 12 of 18 in his Bruno, Chief of Police series of mysteries set in a small French village. This is another series I am focusing on finishing. 

• The People We Keep by Allison Larkin. This is my book club's pick to discuss in May. Found family stories about teen agers are not my favorite cup of tea, but this one was well done and kept my attention.

How was your reading month? Any knockouts? What are you looking forward to reading in May?

My Top Ten Books of 2022 -- BOOK LIST

 

MY TOP TEN BOOKS OF 2022

I don’t usually choose my Top 10 reads of the year. That feels like asking me to chose my favorite cat. Or favorite grandchild. (Well, actually, I could do that. But don’t tell anyone!)

But I thought I'd try something new this year and give a go at making a list of my ten favorite books of the past year. I did not have all ten handy, having read a few with my ears and loaned a couple out. So instead, here you have a picture of my newly tidied up reading corner, now that I put away the Christmas decorations.

Here’s the list of my favorite ten books I read in 2022, in the order I read them. I don't think I could put them in order of preference -- that would be asking too much! See any of your own favorites here?

• Katherine by Anya Seton, a classic of historical fiction. It was the first (full) book I read in 2022 and it stuck with me. 

• The Nest by Cynthia D'Aprix Sweeney, which I gave a couple people for gifts because I loved it so much. It is a charming novel about grown up siblings dealing with the fallout of the ne'er-do-well brother blowing their inheritance. 

• The Word is Murder, the first in Anthony Horowitz’s Hawthorne Investigates series. I quickly gobbled up the other two and have the new, fourth book on hold at the library. 

• Taste: My Life Through Food by Stanley Tucci, which I listened to twice because he reads the audiobook himself and it is fantastic.

• The Counterlife by Philip Roth was very clever and made me think.

• Farewell, My Lovely by Raymond Chandler was a reread for me but so good it sparked a Chandler binge.

• The Newlyweds by Nell Freudenberger was a surprise I found hidden on my TBR shelf, a gift from a bookstagram buddy.

• Toast: The Story of a Boy's Hunger by Nigel Slater was my first Slater book and now I’m hooked!

• White Teeth by Zadie Smith was excellent, simply excellent. I can't believe it took me so long to get to this clever, intricately-plotted story. 

• Call it Sleep by Henry Roth is a forgotten classic I put off reading because I thought it would be boring. On the contrary! It is so, so good and will become a book I proselytize for.

The complete list of the 111 books I read in 2022 is here. You can find links to the my annual book lists under the tab at the top of the page called Reading by Year. 

What were your favorite books of 2022?